1.9.3 Three ‘Paid for’ and two ‘Free’ Options

Prior to the Report Controls upgrade to V1.9.3 you had three options when setting up a new client on your VFD Pro portal: Trial, Free or Paid. There are now three paid options: Advisor Lite, Advise and Grow and Grow & Exit.

Trial:

When you create a new client and set the ‘Connection Type’ to Trial, you can synchronise and run reports as many times as you need to within the first 30 days of setting up a new client/connection.

This allows you to run reports, sort out any bookkeeping issues, re-run reports and hopefully agree additional fees for ongoing support, at which stage you would move your client / Connection to one of the paid plans.

With the Trial plan you will have access to the following reports and growth models:

Free:

As a VFD Pro Subscriber, whatever plan you are on, you can have as many ‘Free’ clients / Connection Types as you wish. This allows you to generate the 2 page Business Overview Report (BOR) for clients at no additional cost to you.

What you chose to charge your clients for this is entirely up to you. Some Accountants provide the BOR to client for free as an added value service, most agree an increased monthly fee and bundle the BOR as part of the service.

With the Free plan you will have access to the Business Overview Report only.

Advisor Lite

This low cost ‘Plan’ or ‘Connection Type’ is designed to provide an enhanced service, giving you and your clients access to:

Advise and Grow

With the Advise and Grow plan you will have access to exactly the same reports and models as the Trial connection type, but you are free to re-synchronise and re-run reports whenever you wish.

Grow & Exit

This connection type gives you everything that comes with Advise and Grow, plus our Exit Value Accelerator suite (EVA) providing you with all the tools you need to help your client prepare financially for their eventual exit…

Help your client place an objective valuation on their business, help them build value and prepare for exit, and assisting them in their financial due diligence process by preparing an incredibly detailed Financial Due Diligence Report, all of which are high valued services.

The EVA suite comprises the following Reports / Models:

• Due Diligence Report – Because you must understand the business before you can value it.
• Valuation Model – Provides a range of valuation models and weighting appropriate to the business.
• Exit Forecast Model – To plan your clients exit, tracking the KPIs required to achieve a desired exit value.
• Performance vs Exit Forecast – Ensure your client is on track to hit their target exit date and value.

Without EVA, placing a credible value on a business can be extremely time consuming and highly subjective. The EVA valuation model transforms the process, generating a highly detailed, objective valuation in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks. This saves you time AND enhances the quality / integrity of final valuation figure provided.

One of the greatest frustration’s buyers face is obtaining accurate and detailed financial information. This frustration is mirrored on the part of the sellers, who typically struggle to provide the information they are being asked to provide.

Conducting Financial Due Diligence requires far more detail than is found in the typical companies annual or management accounts. Combined with the valuation, the Financial Due Diligence Report is incredibly valuable, but more important, by using VFD Pro and the EVA reporting suite together, you can provide buyers and sellers with all the financial data they require in minutes.

Bespoke Plans

If your practice needs something special, over and above the five standard plans: Free, Advisor Lite, Advise and Grow, Grow & Exit, your VFD Pro portal can be configured to provide up to three additional ‘Bespoke’ plans that can be customised to your precise specification including any combination of the VFD Pro reports and models.

To discuss your practices unique requirements, please contact VFD Pro.

A brief description of each of the elements referred to above is available is below.

Business Overview Report (BOR): Help your client track their financial progress on a month-by-month basis, Profit and Loss, key Business Growth metrics, critical Cashflow and Balance Sheet information.

Performance Analysis Report (PAR): This gives you and your client an in-depth analysis of business performance comparing the most recent 12 months with the prior year. This is perfect for businesses with at least two years trading history, but for business start-ups or businesses with a volatile trading pattern, the Performance Trend Report provides a detailed month by month, quarter by quarter analysis…

Management Report (MR): This provides a concise management pack comparing business performance in the last 12 months with the prior year’s performance looking at revenue, margins, overheads and net profit along with key balance sheet, debtors and creditors.

Performance Trend Report (PTR): This gives you and your client an invaluable and detailed analysis of customers, suppliers, margins, balance sheet and cash flow on a month-by-month basis to support management and monthly or quarterly review meetings.

Customer Analysis Report (CAR): This report provides an extremely detailed analysis of your client’s top 40 customers, total revenue, number of transactions and average transaction value with the variance this year compared to last, including the customers with the greatest increase and decrease in revenue, lost customers and gained customers.

Marketing ROI Report (MROI): This report identifies any marketing related expenditure in your client’s accounts and analyses the return on investment in terms of new customers acquired, total customer base and financial ROI along with a detailed analysis of the top 5 marketing suppliers.

Supplier Analysis Report (SAR): This report provides an extremely detailed analysis of your client’s top 40 suppliers, number of transactions and average transaction value with the variance this year compared to last, including the suppliers with the greatest increase and decrease in revenue, lapsed suppliers and new suppliers.

Business Growth Model (BGM): This is an automatically pre-populated model which allows you and your client to assess various growth scenarios so your client can appreciate the full value of the support and assistance you can provide on their journey to success. This makes it much easier for you to agree a sensible ‘scope of work’ and related fee structure.

Customer Targeting Model, (CTM): This is an automatically pre-populated model which allows you and your client to analyse and identify opportunities to upsell and cross sell to existing customers providing a matrix of customers and products/service nominals to create a projection to populate next year’s forecast.

5 Year 3 Way Forecast Model: This is an automatically pre-populated model which imports up to the last 5 years financial data and is used to generate a three-way forecast, (Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow), for the next 5 years. This model is also used to create the Forecast Report, Funding Proposal, and the Performance vs Forecast Report.

Forecast Report: Having created your base forecast using the 5 Year 3 Way Forecast model you can create a Forecast Report for your clients with notes to explain the key assumptions that support the forecast along with projected year 5 profit with sensitivity analysis (sales growth and margin rate), and scenario illustrations.

Funding Proposal Model and Report: For clients who need to access finance, the Funding Proposal is an overlay on the base case forecast to project the impact on revenue, cost of sales and overheads with the corresponding finance income and expenditure to generate a comprehensive, pre-populated funding proposal.

Performance vs Forecast Report: The ultimate Management Pack is generated by updating the Forecast with actual figures each month to report performance vs forecast, including the ability to re-forecast sales, gross margin and overhead projections for the remainder of the financial year to provide a revised year end projection.

Business Data Model: This provides access to all of your clients trading data for the last 3 years in an easily accessible format to support multiple ‘off the shelf’ and bespoke analysis and reporting to address any scenario not addressed in the standard reports.

Opportunity Exception Reports (OERs): The OERs allow you to demonstrate how your client can achieve quick win cost savings and / or potentially reverse negative trends and set your client on a path to growth.